The Dark Story of Britain's Most Haunted Royal Estate: Balmoral
British Manors
179,813 views
On a bend of the River Dee in the Scottish Highlands stands the only one of the British royal residences that the monarch personally owns. Balmoral is not Crown property. It is the private freehold of the reigning sovereign, paid for out of personal funds, accessible to no one without a hand-written invitation, and the place where the British royal family for 175 years have gone to discover what they are when no one is watching them.
Albert bought it for 32,000 pounds in 1852 from the Farquharson family. He rebuilt it in pale Glen Gelder granite between 1853 and 1856. He died at Windsor of typhoid in December 1861. Victoria never altered a piece of furniture in his rooms for the next forty years. She built a cairn for him on the moor above the castle in 1862. She built a Widow's House at Glassalt Shiel on Loch Muick in 1868 where she mourned in solitude until her own death in 1901.
This is also the story of John Brown, the Aberdeenshire ghillie twelve years younger than Victoria, who became her closest personal companion after Albert's death and who may or may not have secretly married her. Of Abdul Karim, the Indian Munshi from Agra whose thirteen-year companionship with Victoria from 1887 was systematically erased by Edward VII within forty-eight hours of his mother's death in 1901, with every letter, photograph, and diary entry burned. Of Karim Cottage, demolished in 1903.
It is the story of Diana's last summer in 1996, six weeks after the divorce, when she brought William and Harry to Balmoral for the customary royal August. It is the story of the early afternoon of 31 August 1997 when the news of her death in Paris reached Balmoral and the Queen made the most criticised public decision of her seventy-year reign by keeping the boys in Scotland.
It is the story of the early afternoon of 8 September 2022 when Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral and Charles became King. The bedroom in which she died is sealed.
And it is the story of Donald McAulay, the head ghillie who served from 1858 to 1899; Annie Macpherson, the chambermaid Victoria called "good Annie" in her diary 28 times; and Iain Robertson, the kitchen porter who served at Balmoral for 43 years across nine monarchs.
In 2023 Charles III had the John Brown statue, exiled by Edward VII to the kitchen garden in 1901, returned to the south lawn where Victoria put it. It is back where it belongs.
Chapters
00:00 The granite castle on the Dee
03:00 A sick prince and Highland air
07:00 The 1856 rebuild and the first Ghillies' Ball
10:30 1861 - the year Albert died
13:00 John Brown
17:00 Abdul Karim and the Munshi years
21:00 1901 - the burning of the papers
24:00 1996 - Diana's last summer
27:30 8 September 2022 - the bedroom upstairs
30:30 What the south lawn still says
Subscribe for more deep investigations into the hidden histories of Britain's great royal residences and estates. Leave a comment below telling us which place we should investigate next.
British Manors. The hidden history of the buildings that shaped England.
Sources
1. Hibbert, Christopher. Queen Victoria: A Personal History. HarperCollins, 2000.
2. Weintraub, Stanley. Victoria: An Intimate Biography. Dutton, 1987.
3. Ridley, Jane. Victoria: Queen, Matriarch, Empress. Penguin Monarchs series, 2015.
4. Cullen, Tom. The Empress Brown: The Story of a Royal Friendship. Bodley Head, 1969 - the secret-marriage hypothesis.
5. Lamont-Brown, Raymond. John Brown: Queen Victoria's Highland Servant. Sutton, 2000.
6. Basu, Shrabani. Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant. Sutton, 2010 - definitive on Karim.
7. Anand, Sushila. Indian Sahib: Queen Victoria's Dear Abdul. Duckworth, 1996.
8. Hibbert, Christopher. Edward VII: The Last Victorian King. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
9. Ridley, Jane. Bertie: A Life of Edward VII. Chatto and Windus, 2012.
10. Roberts, Jane. Royal Landscape: The Gardens and Parks of Windsor. Yale University Press, 1997 - context on royal estates.
11. Royal Collection Trust. Balmoral: The History of a Home. Royal Collection Publications, 2013.
12. Duff, David. Victoria in the Highlands: The Personal Journal of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, edited and annotated. Frederick Muller, 1968.
13. Victoria, Queen. Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, 1848 to 1861. Smith, Elder and Co., 1868 - first published edition.
14. Victoria, Queen. More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands. Smith, Elder and Co., 1884.
15. Bennett, Daphne. King Without a Crown: Albert, Prince Consort of England 1819 to 1861. Heinemann, 1977.
16. Brown, Tina. The Diana Chronicles. Doubleday, 2007 - on Diana's 1996 Balmoral summer.
17. Bedell Smith, Sally. Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess. Times Books, 1999.
18. Bedell Smith, Sally. Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. Random House, 2012.
19. Lacey, Robert. The Queen: A Life in Brief. Harper, 2012.
20 Comments
The Dark Story of Britain's Most Haunted Royal Estate: Balmoral
British Manors
179,813 views
On a bend of the River Dee in the Scottish Highlands stands the only one of the British royal residences that the monarch personally owns. Balmoral is not Crown property. It is the private freehold of the reigning sovereign, paid for out of personal funds, accessible to no one without a hand-written invitation, and the place where the British royal family for 175 years have gone to discover what they are when no one is watching them.
Albert bought it for 32,000 pounds in 1852 from the Farquharson family. He rebuilt it in pale Glen Gelder granite between 1853 and 1856. He died at Windsor of typhoid in December 1861. Victoria never altered a piece of furniture in his rooms for the next forty years. She built a cairn for him on the moor above the castle in 1862. She built a Widow's House at Glassalt Shiel on Loch Muick in 1868 where she mourned in solitude until her own death in 1901.
This is also the story of John Brown, the Aberdeenshire ghillie twelve years younger than Victoria, who became her closest personal companion after Albert's death and who may or may not have secretly married her. Of Abdul Karim, the Indian Munshi from Agra whose thirteen-year companionship with Victoria from 1887 was systematically erased by Edward VII within forty-eight hours of his mother's death in 1901, with every letter, photograph, and diary entry burned. Of Karim Cottage, demolished in 1903.
It is the story of Diana's last summer in 1996, six weeks after the divorce, when she brought William and Harry to Balmoral for the customary royal August. It is the story of the early afternoon of 31 August 1997 when the news of her death in Paris reached Balmoral and the Queen made the most criticised public decision of her seventy-year reign by keeping the boys in Scotland.
It is the story of the early afternoon of 8 September 2022 when Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral and Charles became King. The bedroom in which she died is sealed.
And it is the story of Donald McAulay, the head ghillie who served from 1858 to 1899; Annie Macpherson, the chambermaid Victoria called "good Annie" in her diary 28 times; and Iain Robertson, the kitchen porter who served at Balmoral for 43 years across nine monarchs.
In 2023 Charles III had the John Brown statue, exiled by Edward VII to the kitchen garden in 1901, returned to the south lawn where Victoria put it. It is back where it belongs.
Chapters
00:00 The granite castle on the Dee
03:00 A sick prince and Highland air
07:00 The 1856 rebuild and the first Ghillies' Ball
10:30 1861 - the year Albert died
13:00 John Brown
17:00 Abdul Karim and the Munshi years
21:00 1901 - the burning of the papers
24:00 1996 - Diana's last summer
27:30 8 September 2022 - the bedroom upstairs
30:30 What the south lawn still says
Subscribe for more deep investigations into the hidden histories of Britain's great royal residences and estates. Leave a comment below telling us which place we should investigate next.
British Manors. The hidden history of the buildings that shaped England.
Sources
1. Hibbert, Christopher. Queen Victoria: A Personal History. HarperCollins, 2000.
2. Weintraub, Stanley. Victoria: An Intimate Biography. Dutton, 1987.
3. Ridley, Jane. Victoria: Queen, Matriarch, Empress. Penguin Monarchs series, 2015.
4. Cullen, Tom. The Empress Brown: The Story of a Royal Friendship. Bodley Head, 1969 - the secret-marriage hypothesis.
5. Lamont-Brown, Raymond. John Brown: Queen Victoria's Highland Servant. Sutton, 2000.
6. Basu, Shrabani. Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant. Sutton, 2010 - definitive on Karim.
7. Anand, Sushila. Indian Sahib: Queen Victoria's Dear Abdul. Duckworth, 1996.
8. Hibbert, Christopher. Edward VII: The Last Victorian King. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
9. Ridley, Jane. Bertie: A Life of Edward VII. Chatto and Windus, 2012.
10. Roberts, Jane. Royal Landscape: The Gardens and Parks of Windsor. Yale University Press, 1997 - context on royal estates.
11. Royal Collection Trust. Balmoral: The History of a Home. Royal Collection Publications, 2013.
12. Duff, David. Victoria in the Highlands: The Personal Journal of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, edited and annotated. Frederick Muller, 1968.
13. Victoria, Queen. Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, 1848 to 1861. Smith, Elder and Co., 1868 - first published edition.
14. Victoria, Queen. More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands. Smith, Elder and Co., 1884.
15. Bennett, Daphne. King Without a Crown: Albert, Prince Consort of England 1819 to 1861. Heinemann, 1977.
16. Brown, Tina. The Diana Chronicles. Doubleday, 2007 - on Diana's 1996 Balmoral summer.
17. Bedell Smith, Sally. Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess. Times Books, 1999.
18. Bedell Smith, Sally. Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. Random House, 2012.
19. Lacey, Robert. The Queen: A Life in Brief. Harper, 2012.